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Dutch Jewish school closed after anti-terrorist raid in Belgium

January 16, 2015

The only Orthodox Jewish school in the Netherlands was closed on Friday as a precautionary measure after an anti-terrorism raid in Belgium left two suspects dead. Meanwhile, Berlin police made a number of terror related arrests, as EU states crackdown on potential terror threats. There was no concrete threat against the Cheider School in Amsterdam, Dutch national broadcaster NOS said, citing the school’s Rabbi Binyomin Jacobs. School phones went unanswered Friday morning. Jewish schools in Antwerp and Brussels are also temporarily closed after two terrorism suspects were killed in a raid in Verviers, Belgium, on Thursday.

Dutch Jewish schools and prominent Jewish monuments – including Amsterdam’s Anne Frank House and Jewish Historical Museum – have had extra security since June, on advice of the country’s national anti-terrorism office. That followed a terrorism-related shooting at the Jewish Museum in Brussels, Belgium, in May that killed four.

Belgium anti-terror raids

With Europe dreading more terror, Belgian authorities moved swiftly to pre-empt what they called a major attack by as little as hours Thursday, killing two suspects in a firefight and arresting a third in a vast anti-terrorism sweep that stretched into the night.

The police raid on a former bakery in this provincial rustbelt town was another palpable sign that terror had seeped deep into Europe’s heartland as security forces struck against militants, who officials said included some returnees from Islamic holy war in Syria.

“As soon as I opened the window, you could smell the gunpowder,” said neighbor Alexandre Massaux following a minutes-long firefight with automatic weapons and Kalashnikovs that was also punctuated by explosions.

Two suspects were killed and a third arrested and charged with belonging to a terrorist organization.

“As soon as they thought special forces were there, they opened fire,” federal magistrate Eric Van der Sypt said.

After the gun smoke lifted, police continued with searches in Verviers and the greater Brussels area, seeking more clues in a weeks-long investigation that started well before the terrorism spree last week that led to 17 deaths in the Paris area. The Belgian operations had no apparent link to the terrorist acts committed in France.

And, unlike the Paris terrorists, who attacked the office of a satirical newspaper and a kosher grocery store, the suspects in Belgium were reportedly aiming at hard targets: police installations.

“They were on the verge of committing important terror attacks,” Van der Sypt told a news conference in Brussels.

Across Europe, anxiety has grown as the manhunt continues for potential accomplices of the three Paris terrorists, all of whom were shot dead by French police. Authorities in Belgium signaled they were ready for more trouble by raising the national terror alert level from 2 to 3, the second-highest level.